BRS seeks one-month extension of electoral roll revision in Telangana

A BRS delegation met Telangana Chief Electoral Officer C. Sudharshan Reddy, urging the Election Commission to extend the Special Intensive Revision of electoral rolls by one month, alleging procedural lapses, inadequate voter verification, poor BLO training and technical shortcomings in the ongoing exercise.

Hyderabad: A BRS delegation on Monday met Telangana Chief Electoral Officer C Sudharshan Reddy, urging the Election Commission of India (ECI) to extend the ongoing Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of electoral rolls by one month. The delegation, led by former MP B Vinod Kumar and MLC L Ramana, submitted a memorandum, citing procedural lapses and inadequate time for completion of the verification process in a transparent and error-free manner.

Addressing the media, Vinod Kumar said the BRS had constituted a special committee to coordinate with Booth Level Agents (BLAs) and Booth Level Officers (BLOs) during the SIR process. Based on complaints received from party cadre across the State, he said BLOs were not functioning uniformly and many eligible voters had not received enumeration forms despite only 20 days remaining for completion of the exercise.

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According to the BRS, while enumeration forms had been distributed to about 2.96 crore of Telangana’s 3.38 crore electors, only 19 lakh forms had been digitised as of July 5. The party argued that extending the SIR schedule by a month would enable a transparent, error-free revision process and prevent genuine voters from being excluded from the electoral rolls.

The senior BRS leader also alleged that the 2002 electoral rolls which were being used as the reference document, were not readily available with EPIC numbers, making verification difficult. He said the ECI portal was frequently inaccessible and that the available rolls, largely in Telugu, omitted EPIC details for over 50 per cent of electors.

The party also raised concern over the absence of proper training and clear instructions for BLOs, deletion of voters over minor spelling errors, inconsistencies in the order of surnames and given names, non-availability of voter mapping details, lack of transparency in identifying duplicate and deceased voters, and failure to issue acknowledgements for submitted enumeration forms.